Tackling Work-Related Stress
Resources
Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
Click on the image of a document to download it
Management Standards Presentation
Tackling Work-Related Stress Using the Management Standards Approach:
Step-by-step workbook for managers
Management Standards for Tackling Work-Related Stress
Working Together to Reduce
Stress at Work
Management Standards for
Tackling Work-Related Stress
Are you doing enough?
Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool Questionnaire
Management Standards
Indicator Tool Guide
Checklist: Are Steps Taken to Tackle Work-Related Stress?
How to run Steering Groups
School Female Health Guidelines and Policy
Bretta Townend-Jowitt
This policy helps to ensure that we recognise and support the needs of female health including pregnancy, early motherhood, fertility treatment and the menopause.
Introduction
Pregnancy and menopause are a normal part of every woman’s life. This policy recognises that pregnancy and menopause is an equality and occupational health and safety issue and that women may need appropriate flexibility, support and adjustments during the time of change before, during and after pregnancy and the menopause.
Kingham Primary School is committed to ensuring that women feel confident in discussing pregnancy and menopausal symptoms openly, without embarrassment, and are able to ask for support and adjustments in order to continue to work safely in the organisation. For this reason, pregnancy, menopause and female health at work is an issue for men as well as women.
Kingham Primary School has a positive attitude towards the menopause, pregnancy and fertility treatment and will treat all individuals with dignity and respect during this time and ensure that the workplace does not make symptoms worse.
Click on the image to access the School Female Health Guidelines and Policy
Dealing with Teacher Anxiety
Engage Education (https://engage-education.com/)
When you search for ‘teachers and anxiety’ on the internet, the search results quickly merge into how teachers can help and prevent student anxiety (also a crucial topic, but not what was searched for), which is shocking when it’s no secret that teaching can be a stressful profession. Teachers themselves have to be feeling mentally strong...
Click on the image to access the article on the Engage Education website
Talking Toolkit: Preventing Work-Related Stress
Health and Safety Executive (2017)
Click on the image of the Toolkit to download a copy of 'Talking Toolkit: Preventing Work-Related Stress'
Excessive pressure and demands at work can cause stress. HSE's Talking Toolkit helps you to have a series of conversations with workers to identify and help prevent work-related stress.
The Talking Toolkit is designed to be used as a framework to help line managers have simple, practical conversations with school employees. It should not be used as a sole response to an existing problem with work-related stress in your school but can be combined, for example, with the Teach Well Alliance's Toolkit (Go to https://www.teachwellalliance.com/#teach-well-toolkit for more information).
The toolkit has six templates for six different conversations, each with a different theme designed to get you talking about issues which may be causing work-related stress or issues which could have the potential to become future causes if not managed effectively.
Click on the image of the Toolkit to download a copy of
'Talking Toolkit: Preventing Work-Related Stress'
Teacher Wellbeing Index 2018
Education Support (https://www.educationsupport.org.uk)
"[In] This ...year’s Index ...over a third of education professionals said their job had made them feel stressed most or all of the time in the past few weeks, compared to 18% of the UK workforce overall. A staggering 57% have also considered leaving the sector within the past two years because of health pressures. The consequence is a mounting recruitment and retention crisis.
Teaching is one of the most important jobs there is, a chance to shape the future of the next generation. But by turning the role into an unmanageable task we risk alienating those with the passion and skill to succeed".
Click on the image to download a copy of 'Teacher Wellbeing Index 2018'
Supporting Staff Wellbeing in Schools
Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families (https://www.annafreud.org/)
'Teaching is a tough job. It can be immensely rewarding but also physically and emotionally draining. Safeguarding and mental health issues can be intense and complex. Children’s behavioural and emotional problems are increasing. Many schools recognise this and provide support for their staff. The new focus on children’s mental health, though serves as an important reminder to us that we must couple support for school staff with the ambitions we have for children’s wellbeing. If we don’t we will be letting down all school staff.
If we want our school staff to do what’s asked of them, then we need to make sure that their mental health and wellbeing is effectively supported.”
Professor Peter Fonagy, CEO of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families
Click on the image to download 'Supporting Staff Wellbeing in Schools'
Thriving at Work
The Farmer/Stevenson Review of Mental Health and Employers (2017)
'This study has led us to conclude that underneath the stigma that surrounds mental health and prevents open discussion on the subject, the UK faces a significant mental health challenge at work.
• While there are more people at work with mental health conditions than ever before, 300,000 people with a long term mental health problem lose their jobs each year, and at a much higher rate than those with physical health conditions.
• Behind this, our analysis shows that around 15% of people at work have symptoms of an existing mental health condition. The human cost is huge, with poor mental health having an impact on the lives of many individuals and those around them. This manifests itself in a variety of ways both at work and at home, and impacts a person’s ability to manage other elements of their personal life. Then there is the ultimate human cost of loss of life through suicide. We know that rates of poor mental health and suicide are higher for employees in certain industries.
With the help of an independent study on the cost to employers commissioned from Deloitte, we have also found:
• There is a large annual cost to employers of between £33 billion and £42 billion (with over half of the cost coming from presenteeism – when individuals are less productive due to poor mental health in work) with additional costs from sickness absence and staff turnover.
• The cost of poor mental health to Government is between £24 billion and £27 billion4 . This includes costs in providing benefits, falls in tax revenue and costs to the NHS.
• The cost of poor mental health to the economy as a whole is more than both of those together from lost output, at between £74 billion and £99 billion per year. At a time when there is a national focus on productivity the inescapable conclusion is that it is massively in the interest of both employers and Government to prioritise and invest far more in improving mental health...'
Click on the image to download a copy of 'Thriving at Work: The Farmer/Stevenson Review of Mental Health and Employers'
Mental Health Toolkit for Employers
Business in the Community/Public Health England (2016)
Business in the Community has partnered with Public Health England to produce a free, online toolkit to help every organisation support the mental health and wellbeing of its employees. It will help employers take positive actions to build a culture that champions good mental health and provides a greater understanding of how to help those who need more support.
This toolkit will help employers pick out the most valuable resources, and help to develop an approach that works. For larger organisations, the toolkit is also a useful resource to share with businesses in their supply chain and across their network.
Every organisation has an opportunity to support and develop a mentally healthy workforce and it doesn’t need to be complicated – this toolkit will help you understand and act, step by step.
Click on the image to download a copy of 'Mental Health Kit for Employers'
Managing Mental Health in the Workplace
Unum/Mental Health Foundation (2017)
'Managing Mental Health in the Workplace' looks at safeguarding staff wellbeing, addressing problems before they become severe, and supporting staff when issues do emerge. It's not about becoming an expert in mental health - it's about spotting the signs that something might be wrong. It will signpost the right support and resources and offer suggestions for putting strategies in place to support good mental health.
This paper will help you to:
- understand why good mental health matters in the workplace
- know the role that you and your managers can play in spotting and handling mental health issues at work
- be aware of medium to long-term actions for improving mental health in the workplaces and how to build awareness of them.
Click on the image to download a copy of 'Managing Mental Health in the Workplace'
How Do We Improve the Wellbeing of Our Teachers?
The Schools and Academies Show 2020
There are few issues as pressing in the world of education right now as teacher wellbeing. Making sure that teaching staff – and all school staff for that matter – are able to thrive in their work is becoming a higher priority than in previous years for many educational establishments.
This is not without cause. The Education Support Partnership’s latest Teacher Wellbeing Index 2018, which is conducted in partnership with YouGov, is a sobering read. Of those teachers surveyed, more than three-quarters experienced “work-related behavioural, psychological or physical symptoms” and more than half were considering leaving the profession due to poor health. These are significant figures. In addition, rising levels of insomnia, irritability or mood swings, tearfulness, forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating were also reported. Acute stress – a new category for the 2018 survey – is also on the rise, as is the number of teachers receiving a formal diagnosis of acute stress from their GP.
Further, 67% of teachers are stressed at work, and 74% say that the inability to switch off from work is “a major contributing factor to a negative work-life balance”. Teachers are stressed, and there is insufficient focus on personal wellbeing in the course of a teacher’s working life.
Richard Faulkner, Head of Policy at Education Support Partnership, sees evidence of this deterioration in the wellbeing of teachers. He says: “We can see a steep rise in teachers struggling to maintain good mental health and wellbeing in challenging times in the profession. Our helpline dealt with more than 9,600 cases last year, which represents a 28 per cent rise compared to two years ago.
“It is striking that teachers are not asking for help at the first, or even second, sign of difficulty. The vast majority of callers only get in touch when they are in crisis. Of particular concern for us as a charity is the sharp rise in poor mental health among senior leaders in schools.”
Click on the image to download a copy of 'Schools and Academies Show 2020'
